


Watching

by rael_ellan



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: During 1x01, F/M, Friends and Enemies, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 09:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4300128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rael_ellan/pseuds/rael_ellan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone in the Chatelet, Athos finds that it's harder to keep the memories at bay. To keep <i>her</i> at bay. </p><p>Somewhere in his mind, she was always watching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray into writing for the Musketeers.
> 
> Perhaps it isn't exactly original, but it was beginning to keep me up at night, so here it is. 
> 
> Please let me know if you think anything is wrong here - either in voice, or in historical accuracy. It would be very much appreciated.

_Don’t waste your time with me._

Despite being surrounded on all sides by full cells - the other poor bastards destined to die tomorrow, or the next day, or the next - Athos found himself caught in a strange silence. It echoed in between the steady trudge of footsteps on the cobbles outside, the clunk of keys, and the wails of the other prisoners. 

His _fellows_ , he reminded himself grimly. He was one of them now, awaiting his death.

The hours ticked by _painfully_ slowly. 

There was some hope, of course. Aramis and Porthos were, excepting perhaps himself, the most stubborn men he had ever met. He had no doubt that there were, at that very moment, doing everything in their power (and probably a few things beyond it) to clear his name. They would manage it, of course. It was a good set up, probably even caused some grim sod a great deal of sleep to engineer the whole thing, but whoever they were, they had clearly underestimated the persistence of Musketeers. 

He just wasn’t so sure they’d manage to solve it in time. 

It was difficult to measure time when you could only see a sliver of sky through the bars on your window. He had to rely, almost entirely, on his own sense of the passage of the day. Some people could guess it so intuitively they hardly needed to glance at a timepiece, but Athos had never been one of them. In his youth, he had whiled away hours at a time, lost inside his own head, and had scarcely noticed the time at all.

As he huddled against the door, his thoughts, unbidden, turned to her. They always did, eventually. Some train of thought or other would offer the lightest hint, the suggestion of her presence, and she was there. He distracted himself as best he could, most of the time (if his head span enough, he couldn’t focus on _anything_. It was the closest to bliss he could find), but she was always there, somewhere. Anne dogged at his heels, crouched in the back of his mind like a spectre. Watching, always watching. 

Watching him, watching Thomas, watching the shadows past her shoulder.

Watching the flowers. 

Sometimes she danced, twirling beneath the oak tree with flowers in her hair, as she used to. Some days, she merely stared, fingers dripping with rainwater and blue from the cold, swaying slightly, as though caught in a breeze. 

Her eyes burned in the back of his mind. Was it to punish him? Did she stay to watch him suffer, to see the shell he had become? Or was she waiting, waiting just beyond his cell, just beyond the reach of the world?

He never turned to her, willingly. It hurt too much to try and conjure her, as she used to be. But he tried, now. After all, what better time? He had turned the Father away - he could offer him no absolution - but Anne, _Anne._

She was dancing, a dim silhouette against his eyelids, fixed there like a brand. Her head tipped back, her long throat exposed. Laughing. Was it sunset? Or sunrise? He couldn’t tell. The world was grey and gold beyond their hill, outlined so brightly that he could hardly see her hair. 

She turned towards him, held out her hand. She was laughing, still.

Only half aware of his own actions, he raised his own hand in echo, and reached towards her.

Her hand fell limp. The tree branches sprang up around her, and tightened around her throat.

_“Please. No, please, don’t do this. Don’t! Olivier!”_

He dropped his hand as though burned and pressed it against the cold floor of his cell. He was cold. The bars were at his back. He was alone. 

He had his answer. She _was_ waiting for him, somewhere in the depths of oblivion. And their next meeting would be one of fire and water, rushing together, breaking themselves apart. There was no absolution for him.

By the time the guard came for him, his eyes were drooping. He was tired, so tired, but dared not slip into unconsciousness. She was there, she was waiting. Closer, now, than she had been since that day. Closer now that she knew he was coming to her.

He was hauled to his feet, marched down the long corridors of the Chatelet, down the stairs.

The sky was light. There was no fire here, not yet. It was waiting for him, beyond the veil.

A thrumming began in the back of his mind. 

“Take aim.”

It spread, beating against the inside of his head, throbbing at his temples.

The guns levelled at him.

Flickering shades gathered in the corner of his eyes. He tried to focus on the wall behind the guns, at a point between the bricks. 

His fingers were trembling. He clenched them into a fist and kept staring.

Shadows reached out and pawed at his vision and he felt himself begin to sway, nausea eating at his belly. The throbbing rose and roared through his mind.

_“Just shoot, damn you!”_


End file.
